November 20, 2008  

Note: This article was originally published on June 14, 2000.

Zealots Are Elsewhere As Pro-Family Treaty Fails

By Rita Henley Jensen

Where are those Pro-Family Zealots when you need them? They were all over at the United Nations Special Session in New York, caucusing, demonstrating and handing out leaflets aimed at weakening international human rights for women. And their influence was clearly at work in Washington where the Food & Drug Administration suddenly began to hold up--once again--its approval of the abortion pill, RU-486. At the same time, the agency reportedly indicated that it may drastically reduce the drug's availability by limiting the authority to prescribe it to physicians (not nurse practitioners) who perform surgical abortions. The agency clearly is aware that such a plan destroys one of the key advantages of the pill--that women could abort a pregnancy without setting foot in an abortion clinic. At the same time, in Geneva, an international treaty was drafted providing women 14 weeks of paid (ahhh--imagine--paid) maternity leave, including six-weeks of paid postnatal leave. The United States was among those who voted against the draft.

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